Lioness
by Queen Nightingale
Summary: "Paradise is beyond the small gap in between your two front teeth." Drabble, JPLE.


**LIONESS  
**

**Author: **Queen Nightingale

**Rating: **M (Suggestions)

**Pairing: **JPLE

**A/N: **Drabble: I'm rusty. And their story is poetry.

* * *

"I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other,  
I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't  
tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all of the change,  
I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone."  
- _Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_, J. Foer

* * *

I gulp roses so thorns will stutter underneath your ribcage and erupt into red, blooming welts across your chest. If I press my lips against your cheek and breathe the sadness against your bone marrow, your Adam's apple swallows the grief long and hard.

When we dance at the ball, your large hand wraps delicately around my thin waist, and I try to not inhale too sharply. When you dip me, your eyes are thunder.

"I've never known a girl who moves like you before."

Press your hot breath against my collarbone where I will wear it like a necklace of diamonds. There is some treacherous feeling rushing up my spine when your head dips lower, and the moan you are pulling out of my mouth sounds more like weeping than lust.

When you stand at the back of the greenhouse with the other boys crowding around you like storks, I walk past you and try not to cry. I hate you. I hate this feeling throbbing behind my esophagus and I hate your messy hair and I hate your too-eager gaze. I hate your frame and I hate your height and I hate the freckle above your lip. I hate that I am mad and still remember the freckle above your lip.

When we were fifteen and forever wild, we ran out into the Forbidden Forest and I pressed my hands against your hipbones. There was something melancholic in the tune of the wind; the way you twisted my head up so our lips could say hello was tragic. I ran away and laughed and you chased me through the lonely woods, the stars our only companions, two kids in love in a fucked up world. Two fucked-up kids in love in a lonely world. Two lonely kids in love in a lonely world.

I liked to turn back in class and meet your eyes, your body slung over a desk in the back row, your gaze locked on me. Sometimes you wouldn't be looking over, and you'd instead be doodling on a scrap of parchment, or punching another tall boy in the arm, or lifting your feet onto the desk. When you were looking at me, something pulsed, hard, beyond my abdomen. Your mouth was always a little bit open.

Twist me around in your arms again, pull me onto your shoulder in a fireman's carry, let me weep against your shoulder like we did that night when I saw God in your smile. You moved just like a typical bumbling teenage boy, unsure, gawky, lanky, but there was kindness in the creases under your eyes. Your chest didn't have definition. Your pants hung off you and you wore a red baseball cap. Your shoulders stretched your shirt wide. I've never seen anything more beautiful. I missed you even when I was with you.

"I've never known a girl who moves like you before."

When you touch me, lightning traces up my arms. I tilt my head back and your lips spell out L-O-V-E with your eyes closed, my fingers in your hair. There is moonshine in the tears jamming my eyes shut. When they bleed out, you suck each tear into your mouth. When I begin to apologize, you press your finger against my lips and start crooning a waltz. I laugh, between the sobs. You're a wonderland.

Paradise is beyond the small gap in between your two front teeth. You strum my ribcage to the tune of a sonata, and my heart beats glow-in-the-dark. When you speak my name, soft, low, dangerous, it vibrates in the air for a few minutes before dying.

You skin tastes like soap.

I love you more than myself. I love you more than the sky. The only thing I love more than you is this child in my arms and that is because he is the meaning of love itself. When you came home that day, you threw your keys nonchalantly on the table and then walked over to me, pressing your lips to my forehead and smiling a grin that meant sunshine.

"James," I scream, the sound of the intruders getting louder, the sound of your footsteps rocketing down the stairs, "James. Come back. James! JAMES?! JAMES!"

I hear it happen and then something rips in my heart please no please _God_ please no and breaks and the sky has closed the stars in their sockets and I can't breathe and there's pain everywhere please stop please come back but I stand and roar because there is a child behind me with your eyes. And I am a lion for a reason.


End file.
